Sarma Recipe – Serbian Cabbage Rolls

Sarma is the delicious Serbian take on classic filled cabbage rolls.
By Milica Cvetkovic

I’m pretty sure you’ve already tried something similar. But if not, let me introduce you Sarma (cabbage rolls) – spicy sour cabbage leaves stuffed with ground beef, cooked in the oven or on the stove, in Serbia traditionally spiced with home made smoked bacon or other smoked meat and aleva paprika (ground chili) – we like it hot!

Now you fill the cabbage. Place a spoon of beef in the middle of bottom the leaf. Fold from left then fold from right. Roll the cabbage keeping fingers firmly on the side.

Place rolls in oiled baking dish. Sprinkle with chilly and parsley. Place bacon slices in the middle. Pour 1 and ⅔ cup of water in.

Bake covered for 1 hour then reduce temperature to 200 degrees C and bake for another 1 hour.

In the end, fry shortly flour with 5 tbs of oil in small sauce pan, stirring constantlly and adding chilly gradually. In the same time remove baking dish from the oven, pour ⅔ cup of water and mixture of flour, oil and chilly. Put uncovered dish in the oven for another 15 minutes.

Grown up in a foodie family, learned to enjoy and feel everything she eats, Milica decided to learn more about food and food cultures all over the world. 2 years ago she started writing her own blog Mila's Cookbook, which has expanded her culinary perspectives and experiences vastly.

These look so good! We have lots of cabbage in Portugal so I’m always willing to try a new recipe for cabbage leaves! I love the bacon/smoked ham part of it, though I’ll probably have to substitute it for presunto instead (usually salted cured ham) :)

Hello everyone,
First, I want to thank Milica for a wonderful recipe and I will definitely try to make it. This is one of many traditional Serbian dishes, but for sure one of the most authentic ones. After looking for sour cabbage for a very long time, I finally found it at a Russian grocery store. It can definitely be found at some specialty stores like Asian markets, European stores and such. It is packed in jars and the label on it will say “whole cabbage leaves”.
I hope this helped